The 48-hour silence period for campaigning will apply to social media platforms too and even a small appeal video of 20-30 seconds will not be allowed, Ashok Lavasa, Election Commissioner, told Business Line in an interview. Excerpts.

What kind of scrutiny arrangements does the EC have to verify details in candidates’ affidavits?

Generally there are two purposes of the disclosure. One is that all the affidavits which are filed by the candidates are uploaded on the Web site immediately for people to know the details. This is the transparency purpose. The second is that all these affidavits and the other details are sent to the Income Tax Department for it to carry out a scrutiny and point out if there is any mismatch or if there are any areas which it needs to investigate.

Whatever investigation they do is as per their own laws and regulations and after that they are expected to inform the Commission about any irregularities that they have detected or if they are carrying out any further investigations. The Income Tax Department will report back to the Commission as per an agreed format that has been evolved after discussions.

Will those details be made public?

Under the Income Tax Act, there is a restriction on the Income Tax Department on making certain information about the entities public but the tax authorities have agreed that the information that they provide as per this format can be made public.

Are you also going to co-ordinate with the GSTN (Goods and Services Tax Network)?

We had a meeting of the all the Departments or Ministries which are engaged in the administration of various economic activities and a certain coordination mechanism is operating between them. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), which now looks after GST, is a part of that.

How you are going to monitor the expenditure ceiling of ₹70 lakh per candidate per constituency?

Under the rules, every candidate has to maintain certain registers that are daily accounts and these are supervised and overseen by our expenditure observers. After the election is over, there is a mandatory period of 30 days within which the candidate has to submit a final account. The over 700 expenditure observers will keep an eye on the maintenance of proper accounts by the candidates. There is a committee which declares rates which will apply to certain items of expenditure. Every candidate is supposed to know that whatever expenditure he incurs, and the bills he submits as proof will be cross checked with the normative list. We also have a system of appointing surveillance units in all the assembly constituencies and we have flying squads. An additional feature which has been introduced throughout the country during this general election is the ‘cVIGIL’ app. This app was experimented with in the five State elections in November-December 2018.

It’s a tool of empowerment for the citizens where if a citizen observes any violation of the Model Code or any other infringement of law, which he thinks is going to affect the elections, he is free to take a picture, take a video and immediately upload it. We have prescribed a timeline within which the enforcement machinery is expected to respond. We saw some very good results in the State elections where we received almost 20,000 inputs of which 68-70 percent were correct. The system was able to respond and curtail those activities or it was information which provided material for further investigations.

Are additional mechanisms available in constituencies that have been declared very sensitive from the cash management or expenditure perspective?

We have a system of identifying certain areas as expenditure-sensitive and apart from strengthening our enforcement machinery in those areas, we also have other measures but don't discuss them in public. If necessary, we will deploy special expenditure observers in these areas.

Can you share the number of such areas?

That process is dynamic and by and large, the configuration of constituencies emerges after the candidates are finalised.

How can expenditure on rallies or campaign by star campaigners be accounted for?

There is a very clear and elaborate mechanism on how the expenditure incurred on star campaigners or by political parties in using star campaigners will be apportioned among the candidates. Our guidelines are very clear that in case a rally is used to promote a specific candidate then the expenditure is booked in his name. But, if there is no appeal made for a specific candidate or if there are no displays highlighting that candidate, then that expenditure is booked under the party’s account.

The social media policy is generating a lot of discussion. What is new in this?

We have included social media in the silent period. The expenditure incurred on political advertisements on social media will be booked to the candidate’s account and the arrangement through which this will be possible. We have got into a discussion with the social media platforms and they have conveyed certain arrangements that they have put in place.

They have also appointed grievance officers and have fact check systems. They have put in place a certain response mechanism whenever complaints are made. To further firm up this arrangement, we have called a meeting tomorrow when we will tie up the loose ends.

Are videos which are not advertisements but just a 20 or 30 second appeal allowed on social media during the silent period?

I think the way to look at this would be that whatever steps are being taken, they’re being taken despite a legal framework not being available. In social media, there is certainly a need to bring about laws to regulate the activities. Equally some amendments will be required in law. So whatever arrangement is being attempted by the EC is a voluntary willingness on the part of the social platforms to adhere to and agree.